


Fairy Tales Are More Than True

by BellatrixDraven



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-11-01 13:01:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10922340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BellatrixDraven/pseuds/BellatrixDraven
Summary: "Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." Neil Gaiman





	Fairy Tales Are More Than True

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea of the timeline in M*A*S*H as it's been a while since I had the chance to sit and watch it, so canon is probably just thrown out the window time-wise. Please forgive me.

The thing is, when Radar first arrives in Korea, he's not actually eighteen. He's going to be, in six months and thirteen days. He had been born at home and the paperwork was always wonky and they needed someone older if he was to be taken seriously anywhere besides the farm with his mom. So he had lied and said he was a year older than he actually was when the census worker came around. It didn't really matter, he had thought at the time. Ottumwa wasn't a place that would easily get a draft card picked, it was the middle of nowhere, with more corn than people, and more pollen than corn.  
At least, that's what he had always thought. But his number had been picked and within two weeks he had packed a suitcase of clothes and his spare glasses and his favorite book and his bear, that he hadn't actually slept with in a few years but couldn't bring himself to leave behind, and he had arrived in Korea. He didn't know much about anything except that he was grateful to be in a M*A*S*H unit rather than the front lines. They made him the company clerk and he didn't have to do dangerous things much, and there was a place where he could get Grape Nehi, so it wasn't terrible.  
But the thing was, it was a nightmare and it was terrible, and he was still a kid who was scared. More scared of the bombshells than he had ever been of the roaches, or mice, or howling coyotes. He was scared of clattering pans in the mess, and how the mail could get delayed, and static on the phone and he was scared to step foot outside the camp, not even a yard away. The only things that helped were the stuffed bear that a Korean child always wanted, and Hawkeye.  
He hadn't even meant to like Hawkeye. It had just happened one morning, the doctor had arrived in a stolen Jeep with a fake mustache on and Klinger beside him, wearing the ugliest purple dress to see the light of day. Hawkeye had parked gracelessly and saluted to Radar before kissing his forehead with a loud smack, and skipping into his tent. His jokes were bad but his skills were good, and for the first time since he had heard his number called, Radar felt a little bit of hope.  
Likewise, Hawkeye was a doctor but he wasn't a trauma surgeon, unless fixing skating accidents in January counted. He had done a few appendix removals and wisdom teeth surgeries, and once even a broken nose, but there wasn't a lot going on in Crabapple Cove that needed surgery. He had become a doctor to take over when the current one retired, and god knew that should be soon, he was only as old as the cryptkeeper. But he had been drafted and Dr. Knox had to keep going with skating injuries and fish hooks in thumbs and concussions from rowdy schoolboys.  
Hawkeye hadn't meant to become an alcoholic. He hadn't even liked it in medical school, the taste of vodka or gin or any martinis. He didn't like wine or beer or anything that had to be fermented and he thought it was too similar to antiseptic. But in Korea, with the bombings and his uniform in a permanent state of brown and green, he'd welcome anything to numb the pain. It helped him sleep and it helped him numb and it helped make everything a little less bad. Not enough to be happy to be in hell, but enough that he wasn't screaming and giving into the urge to shove a scalpel in his eye. The drinking increased as the days went, when Trapper left and Blake died and even when Frank was shipped home. Everything familiar was leaving, except the wounded and the feel of soft tissue beneath his palms, and Radar's huge eyes every morning.  
Sometimes they just sat together in the early morning. They knew wounded would be in at the crack of dawn, and that they needed as much sleep as they could get. But they were rather like brothers, and even when nothing else was okay, it felt nice to have each other as an anchor. Hawkeye would hold his martini glass loosely in his fingers, and Radar would have a Nehi between his knees and they would sit shoulder to shoulder, staring at the stars. It continued like this for months  
"Hawkeye?" Radar asked one night.  
"Yes Radar?"  
"It's weird. You know what time it is?"  
"I'd guess about four thirty, but I think you mean something else." Hawkeye was a little drunk, this had to be his sixth martini, and it still tasted like lighter fluid. "Tell me, mi amour, what time is it?  
"It's my birthday." Radar said, softly, as if he couldn't quite grasp it. "I'm finally eighteen."  
"Happy birthday." Hawkeye said, sobering up. "I'm sorry it's here, not in Tokyo or Seoul or Ottumwa."  
"Oh it don't really matter," Radar said quickly, trying to laugh it off. "I'm a man now, and men go to war. So I'm already better than some men, since I was here before." He picked at the label on his soda, not looking up. "Except most men don't still read fairy tales or sleep with a bear."  
"Fairy tales are a saving grace." Hawkeye murmured. "They're wonderful."  
"They're just as morbid as war."  
"Yeah, but you still know something good happens at the end of a fairy tale." Hawkeye threw his glass aside, watching it roll across the way. "Radar, what's your favorite fairy tale? Cinderella? Snow White? The Tinderbox?"  
Radar thought for a moment. In the trunk under his bed, he had his book of fairy tales, worn to shreds in some places and tattered at the spine. It had the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen and Charles Perrault, and everything in between. It had his mother's favorite story underlined in black felt pen, and he would read it at night when the shelling was too much. It was dog-eared and ratty, and had to be at least sixty years old. There were illustrations as faded as his fatigues. But he didn't know which story was his favorite. After awhile they were all the same.  
"I don't know."  
"Well, let's start with a classic." Hawkeye hummed.  
"What's the point?" Radar asked, somewhere between confused and angry. "They don't come true, they never come true, they're just stupid stories. Stupid little fairy tales." On the last word he threw the bottle of Nehi as hard as he could at the nearest Jeep, watching it shatter and trickle over the tires. "I'm too old for fairy tales."  
"Fairy tales are true Radar. They're more than true."  
"How?"  
"Cinderella. She had a terrible life, the most ungrateful people to work under. Like us and Frank. And everything was terrible, she only had mice for friends, like you have your guinea pigs and I have my liquor. But she had someone watching out for her, and she got to the ball, and found a prince."  
"You want me to find a prince?" Radar asked, unimpressed.  
"I'm telling you, you'll be going home soon, and there's gonna be a ball waiting. Something good and unexpected and you'll be alright."  
"Sure."  
"And there's Rapunzel. Who lost her hair and her boyfriend's eyesight but still lived happily ever after."  
"But the little mermaid died."  
"Because she figured it was better to let someone love their true soulmate than someone in between. And she didn't die, she became an air sprite. She practically got immortality."  
"I don't want to be immortal in a warzone."  
"Radar, stop being a difficult beast for one minute." Hawkeye snapped. "And just think. You know what, fairy tales are more than true and you know why? Because they give us dragons and demons and horrifying things to be afraid of in the night. They make us scared of dark corners and women we don't know, but they give us hope and light and life, and they tell us something even better."  
"What's that?"  
"That dragons can be beaten." Hawkeye answered. "They can always be beaten, no matter how bad the odds, how terrified the hero, how small the savior. The war is our dragon Radar, but we're the knights in the story." He stood, stretching his back and hissing. "I'm going to bed, pretend to get some sleep before breakfast and the wounded arrive. They'll need us from their fight with the dragon Radar. Be ready." He left, disappearing into the Swamp without another word or sound.  
Radar sat a while longer, staring at the sky. Then slowly, he picked up the shards of his bottle to throw away, and Hawkeye's martini glass to wash later, and went to his bunk. He was eighteen and the war was hell and he was still scared. But maybe Hawkeye was right, and they would beat the dragon in the end.


End file.
